Automatic switching device for toy and other electric railroads



Feb. 21, 1934. EJ. Fic-ESSEN v 1,948,511

AUTOMATIC SWITCHNG DEVICE FOR TOY AND OTHER ELECTRIC RAILROADS INVENTOR BY HIS ATTORNEY 2 Feb. 27, 1934. 'E P F|CKE|$5EN 1,948,571

AUTOMATIC SWITCHING DEVICE FOR TOY AND OTHER ELECTRIC RAI-LROADSy Filed July 19. 1932 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 mans INVENTOR 2 EBEL/@61155611 BY Hfs ATTORNEY Patented Feb. 27, 1934 UNITED STATES AUTOMATIC SWITCHING DEVICE FOR TOY AND OTHER ELECTRIC RAILROADS Edward P. Fickeissen, Richmond Hill, N. Y.

Application July 19, 1932. Serial No. 623,327

2 Claims.

The main object of this invention is the provision of an automatic progressive switching device for use in connection with toy electric railroad systems, whereby a train following a closed loop track in the form of a circle or the like, may be switched on to a branch track of similar conformation but of a greater diameter and again out of the second track on to a third similarly formed track. This is accomplished by means of a series of pairs of switches, each pair being operated in unison so that the train may be switched from its original loop on to the branch loop and returned to the original loop or that portion of the original loop which is common to both or all of the loops.

A second object of the invention is the provision of a contact opening and closing device operable by the pressure of a passing train upon a lever lying in the path of the train.

Another object of the invention is the provision of a contact opening and closing device comprising essentially a rotatable control disc having contact making arms extending radially therefrom in combination with a lever adapted to be operated by a passing train to advance the disc through an arc to disengage the contacting arms from one set of contacts and to engage the arms with the next adjacent set of contacts.

The above and other objects will become ap- 30 parent in the description below, in which characters of reference refer to like-named parts in the drawings.

Referring briefly to the drawings, Figure 1 is a side-elevational view of the contacting device illustrating its application to a section of railroad track.

Figure 2 is a plan view of Figure 1.

Figure 3 is a view illustrating the manner of connecting a solenoid to a switch.

Figure 4 is a schematic wiring diagram of the device applied to the track.

Referring in detail to the drawings, the numeral represents a tie rod on which the railroad tracks 11 and the power rail l2 are permanently mounted. The track, together with the contact making device, is supported on a platform 13. The latter supports the base 14 from which extends an upright wall 15. Pivoted in the wall 15 is a lever 16 which extends on both sides of this pivot. A second lever 16a is mounted at 16h. On the base 14 a rail section 17 joins the free ends of the levers 16 and 16a, and it is obvious that up depression of the rail 17, the righthand 18 of the lever 16 will be raised. At the extremity of the end 18, of this lever, a sleeve 19 is formed through which passes the pin 21 whose head serves to limit the upward movement of the lever 18. A lug 20 extends from this end of the lever, and this lug is normally urged downward by a resilient nger or spring 22 secured at 23 to the wall 15. A link 24 loosely engages the lever 18 adjacent the sleeve 19 at one end, and its other end similarly engages a bar 25 pivotally mounted at one end on the shaft 26. Likewise pivotally mounted on the shaft 26 is a disc 27, having integral therewith three equidistant radial arms 28, 29, and 30, the arm 28 being the shortest, 29 being slightly longer, and 30 being the longest. The disc 27 is provided with spaced-apart parallel ratchet teeth 31 and adjacent each tooth 31 the periphery of the disc is provided with a groove or notch 32. A pawl 25a is mounted on the end of the bar 25 and when the link 24 is raised this pawl pushes the nearest tooth 31 upward, thus rotating the disc 27 in a counter-clockwise direction. A resilient band or finger 33 is secured at one end 34 to the wall 15, its other end being free and normally urged against the periphery of the disc 27, as shown in Figure 1. This free end is adapted to register in the notch 32 to prevent rotation of the disc excepting upon the application of the force provided by the pawl 25a. Groups of three contacts are arranged radially on the wall 15 with the shaft 26 as a center, the number of groups being equal to the number of teeth 31 on the disc. A housing shown at 36 in dotted lines in Figure 2 may be applied as a cover for the contact making device.

In Figure 4 two switches 37 and 38 are shown schematically in the track loop 39, whereby a train running in the loop 39 may be switched out through switch 37 on to a larger loop and switched back through the switch 38 on to the loop 39. In the illustration in Figure 3, which shows a typical switch with means for operating same, the frog of the switch is provided with a web 40, having a slot 41 extending parallel to the rail of the frog. A pin 42 passes through this slot and extends integrally from a long core 33 of the solenoid 44. This solenoid is provided with two windings each occupying half of the length of the solenoid, the windings being in opposite directions so that energization of the winding 45, for instance, will cause the core 43 to be sucked into the solenoid, whereas energization of the winding 46 will cause the core to be expelled. Hence the frog 42 will be swung from one side to the other or yvice versa depending on which winding is energized. In order that the train passing around loop 39 may be switched on to the branch loop, it is obvious that with respect to the solenoid adjacent switch 37, one winding will have to be energized and at the same time the opposite winding of the solenoid adjacent switch 33 is energized.

On the back of the wall 15, of Figure 1, the Various contacts 35 are bridged together as shown in Figure 4, the dotted lines indicating one common wiring and the full lines another.

From six of the contacts 35, lead-wires 47, 48, 49, 50, 51 and 51a extend. This view shows a track system having three pairs of switches 37 and 38, the solenoid 44a lying next switch 37 and the solenoid 44]t lying next the switch 38. Solenoids 44h and 44e would lie next to a second paii` of switches, not shown, in the loop on to which the switches 37 and 38 switch, and the solenoids 44o and 44d would lie next to the iinal pair of switches, respectively. At 52 is shown a transformer which feeds the system by means of its leads 53 and 54. The negative lead 53 is connected through wire 53a to both of the ground rails of the track and an additional negative lead 53D is similarly connected on the other side of the switching device to provide continuous energy to the track which would otherwise be interrupted because of the break necessary at the position of the contacting device. The common leads of the soienoids 44d, 44e, and 441 are connected to alead-v/ire 54h which in turn is connected to the positive transformer lead 54; likewise the common leads of the trasformers 44a and 44h and 44e oi the switches on the other side of the system are joined to a lead-Wire 54a which is also connected to the positive lead 54. The negative leads on one side of each solenoid of a given pair oi switches, for instance 44o and are joined together; the other negative leads of the same solenoids are likewise joined together. The shaft 26 or the common point of all the three contact arms 28, 29, and 30, is connected by a lead 55 to one of the ground rails of the track. The lead 47 from the contacting device connected to the wire 56 which leads to the outside negative terminals of the solenoids 44a and 44f. The lead 48 connects with the common wire 59 which is joined to the inside negative terminals of the solenoids 44a and 44h, Likewise the other leads 49, 50, 51, and 51a connect with the common wires 60, 57, 61, and 58, respectively, which similarly join the proper terminals of the pairs of solenoids.

To illustrate the operation of the device let it be assumed that switches 37 and 38 are open so that a train running on the track 39 is coniined to the loop shown. When the device is in operation the train or passing rail 17 will through an appropriate shoe, not shown, depress this rail and thereby raise link 24 through an arc so that the disc 27 will be rotated in a counter-clockwise direction the distance between two adjacent teeth by means of the pawl 25a. The resilient iinger 33 will at the completion of this movement fall into the next notch 32 and thus prevent further rotation of the disc in the same direction as the result of the single depression of the rail 17. The arms 28, 29, and 30 will thereby have been advanced through a similar arc so that they break the contacts upon which they had been previously resting and close new contacts the same arcs distance away from the original contacts. Let us assume that the closing of the new contacts causes current to pass through the left-hand windings of solenoid 44a and the right-hand winding of solenoid 44j. This will cause the frog of switch 37 to be drawn to the left and that of switch 38 to be diawn to the right, thus setting these switches so that the train will then return to the original loop 39 and on its second passing of the rail 17, will again depress the latter and advance the disc 27 through another arc of the same length, thereby again bringing a new group of contacts into circuit. The arrangement is such that upon the second depression of the rail 17 the same relative windings of the solenoids 4422 and 44e are energized so that switches from the second into the third loop are shifted to shunt the train from the second to the third loop. This may be repeated indenitely by increasing the number of switches and appropriate contacts on the disc 27. By proper wiring of the contacts with respect to each other, it is therefore obvious that the device will predetermine the succession in which the various sets of switches are to be opened or closed so that, for instance, instead of following the sections above described, the train may be branched from the original loop to the third next loop instead of the immediately next, and upon its return may be switched into the immediately next loop.

The device of this invention is useful in that once it is connected as shown to a toy electric system, the switching of the train becomes automatic, and after the disc 27 has been rotated through one third of a circumference, the cycle begins anew. As a further feature, it would be readily possible to provide signal lamps of varying colors at the various switches either directly in circuit with the solenoid windings or in relay circuits therewith, so that these various lamps would ila-sh on or off or change color in accordance with the expected manuvre of the train.

Obviously, modifications in form and structure may be made without departing from the spirit of the invention.

I claim:

l. A progressive contacting device comprising a wall having a disc rotatably mounted adjacent thereto, a plurality of accurately spaced-apart radially arranged contacts on said wall, spacedapart radial contact arms on said disc adapted to engage successively said contacts, a lever pivotally mounted intermediate its length adjacent said wall, means mounted partly on said lever and partly on said disc for rotating said disc through an are upon depression of one end of said lever and consequent raising of the other end, said means being of such d'mensions that upon a single depression of said end of said lever each of said Contact arms disengages with one group of said contacts and engages with the next adjacent group.

2. A progressive contacting device comprising a wall having a disc rotatably mounted adjacent thereto, contacts on said wall arranged radially about said disc, contact arms on said disc adapted to engage successively said radial contacts, a lever pivotally mounted adjacent said disc, means partly on said disc and partly on said lever for causing said lever to rotate said disc through an arc upon depression of said lever, means for preventing secessive rotation of said disc upon a single depresson of said lever, and resilient means normally retaining said lever in raised position.

EDWARD P. FICKEISSEN.

IUD 

